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10 facts you may not know about hamsters

There is more to your pet Hamster than meets the eye. Here are 10 lesser known facts about these fabulous little house pets. Hamsters are fantastic first pets, they are easy to look after and brilliant for children to learn how to successfully care for an animal.

The Golden or Syrian Hamster is the species that is commonly sold. Hamsters come in all varieties of colours and hair length, with some long haired varieties growing their hair several centimetres long and in doing so need specialist care.

Ten things you might like to know about the pet hamster…….

Unlike other hamsters, Dwarf hamsters mate for life.

They can blink one eye at a time.

The first Golden Hamster was presented in England in 1839 by George Robert Waterhouse.She was an elderly female that had been found in Syria. After her death her fur was displayed in the British Museum for a time.

In Europe and Western Asia, the largest of the hamster species can be found, measuring around 20-30 cms (8-12 inches), they are brown with dark fur on their tummies.

If they get too cold, hamsters can fall in to hibernation.

The Dwarf Winter White Russian hamster and the Dwarf Campbell Russian hamster both have fur on the bottom of their feet.The Winter White’s fur can change white in the winter which is triggered by the shortening of daylight hours.

Hamsters practice coprophagy, which means that they eat their own faeces.They do this to get extra nutrients from it.

In the wild, hamsters live in dry areas in burrows beneath the ground.

The very first litter of Golden hamsters was discovered eight feet (nearly two and a half metres) below the surface of the ground in Syria.

In the wild, hamsters have been known to stash away more than 60 pounds of grain to last them through the winter – much to the annoyance of farmers.